Gallagher Girls: A Stranger In The Midst
by fSrat
Summary: The Gallagher Girls are in London with Zach tracking down the Circle of Cavan when they meet an unexpected ally that throws a spanner in the works. (Because of the complaints; disclaimer: I am NOT Ally Carter, I do NOT own Gallagher Girls. I never said this was a Zammie fic, it is just me writing about their world which happens to feature Zammie)
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1.**

It was late. So late that all the pubs and bars had kicked the last alcoholics out and not one light seemed to be on in the large residential area. If you looked up past the hazy orange glow of the street lamps, you could have imagined the inky blackness of the sky, like the depths of a person's pupil, stretching to infinity above you. Not a sound could be heard except for the soft crunching of a girls feet on wet tarmac. It was hard to tell whether she was in her late or mid teens, both of which would've been out of place in this particular neighbourhood at this particular hour, yet she seemed quite comfortable in her surroundings, ignoring the drunk heckles of the rowdy men on the other side of the bare street. She had the hood of her jacket pulled up over her head yet every time she passed under a street lamp, her features were illuminated by the glare. The girl had never been described as pretty, but she'd never been called ugly either, her physique was a little bit skinnier than it should've been for the tall height that she was, which was emphasised by the tight black jeans she was wearing, every so often her jacket flapped open because of the icy winds revealing a plain dark grey vest top which hung low, highlighting her prominent collar bones. The first thing you noticed about her face was her sharp yellow eyes which stood out against the dark circles which were her shrunken eye sockets. Her short scraggily red hair rested just above her shoulders, the pale skin was taught against her high cheekbones and drew attention to her hollow cheeks and temples. Her nose was a faultless right angle with perfectly straight edges, just below that was her constantly parted, slightly chapped lips where you could glimpse a small gap between her two front teeth.

In the past, lots of people had described her as "nondescript", but those people were gone now, along with everything else that used to be.

The girl walked without purpose, she varied her pace, turned down a street when she felt like it, crossed the road or even stopped altogether, seeming to stare into nothingness with a slightly glazed look across her piercing eyes. She had headphones in that seemed to be plugged into an electronic device of some kind in her pocket yet she wasn't listening to music, she had tuned in to an Turkish radio station and half listening to the news in one ear, the other earphone was silent except for the faint static that sounded like a snow storm.

She continued along her journey, her eyes never shifting from straight ahead but she walked as if she didn't need her eyes to see where she was going. She walked for half an hour, seemingly with no direction, and then all of a sudden, in a flash she had sprung over a garden fence, if you had blinked you would've thought she had disappeared into thin air. She sustained her pace whilst making her way through gardens and back alleys, every so often hopping out of the way to avoid a security light, however she had added more of spring to her step now, she treaded lightly, making no more sound then the wind through the grass beneath her feet as she jumped fence after fence, until she seemed satisfied and ended up on a small disserted high street lined with closed shops. She stopped for a second, scanning her surroundings, apparently searching for something.

"Where is he?" The girl muttered under her breath; as she tilted her head down to hide her face with her hood.

"Sorry what was that _Fox_?" A boy's voice replied sarcastically in her right headphone, if she had been surprised to hear someone talking to her through her earphones, she didn't show it.

"Where the hell is he... Jingo._" _She said with a tone of voice that made the hairs at the back of your neck stand up, it was very clear that she didn't like to have to repeat things.

"It's _Jango_, like from Star Wars," the voice in her ear said, sounding quite annoyed as if he had the same trait of hating to have to repeat himself, except he seemed to be able to take it with a pinch of salt. The girl raised her head a fraction, just enough to see her eyes flick for a millisecond to the camera located by an ATM just ahead of where she was standing, she then proceeded to scratch her cheek with her middle finger in the direction of camera. "Well that's rude." The voice continued in her ear.

She very slightly rolled her eyes as she said, "Well that doesn't answer my question. Tell him to hurry up."

"Why don't you tell me yourself?" A voice behind her asked out of the shadows. He was everything the girl wasn't; his looks deserved attention, not a quick glance. He was tall, at least 6ft, even taller than the girl who was 5ft 10", with broad shoulders, a strong jaw line, perfect bone structure and unkempt black hair that stuck up in all directions.

She turned her head slightly to acknowledge his presence then continued walking down the high street, not even bothering to check whether her new accomplice was following her. However fast she was walking with her long legs, the boy instantly fell into step with her without even working for it. "So you're the infamous Fox? You're not quite what I imagined..." He said, breaking the momentary silence as he looked her up and down quickly out of the corner of his eye, "You're more..." He paused as he tried to find the right word to describe her, she didn't bother to tell him there wasn't one, he'd find out soon enough.

"Jango, what is _this_?" She spoke bluntly; like she was trying to injure the boy with her words, interrupting him as he still struggled to uncover the best adjective for her.

"You asked for backup so here it is," the boy in her headphone answered , accompanied with the sound of machine gun fire, sounding distracted and disorientated.

"The key word being _backup_ Jango, not _decoy,_ he stands out too much, he definitely won't do," she replied eyeing him with raised eyebrows, taking in everything from his high cheekbones to his hands that were shoved firmly into his pockets, giving him a look of extreme confidence. "... And get off your bloody video games," she added.

"You know _he_ is right here don't you?" said the boy next to her, huffing like a small child.

"Yeah well we can't all look 'heroin chic' Fox, it's him or nothing," continued the boy in the headphone, completely ignoring the other one, who on closer inspection had an earpiece tucked safely within his ear. The girl just sighed and continued down the street as if she had no energy to make a snarky reply to him.

They continued down the barren street in silence, every so often slipping into the shadows to avoid an unexpected car drive past or some security cameras. They walked until they entered yet another residential area and the girl once again navigated the maze of identical houses without consulting a map or even really looking where she was going. And then just when the boy was going to break the stony silence and ask how much further, she darted down an alley into absolute darkness, waiting a couple of seconds for the boy to follow. She walked a few steps then instantly stopped, frozen on the spot, every muscle tense, listening for any sound that would tell her they were being watched. After a while she seemed satisfied that they were alone because she turned to the boy next to her, who was uncomfortably close to her, both their backs were on opposite walls but still they were inches apart, the old version of the girl would've swooned at being so close to such a 'handsome' boy, but now? Not so much.

"Okay look, there are jammers on this building so our comms won't work, if I'm not out in seven minutes then leave and don't look back, just keep watch and if anyone comes... I don't know stall them or something," the girl forcefully instructed, already taking things out of her pockets and pulling her hair into a small bun.

"What even is this place?" the boy asked staring up at the high walls and up and down the alleyway. As his eyes were averted to the sky, the girl thrusted a small electronic device into his hands and took off her jacket and wrapped it around her hands.

Ignoring the question she said, "A green light will flash on the screen once the silent alarm sounds after the seven minutes are up, that's your queue to go."

"And what about cameras?" he asked, in response she reached over and typed in some commands on the gadget and then turned, took a small leap at the wall, rebounded off it onto the opposite one and continued climbing the wall like this with such agility and grace it was hard not to compare her to an animal like a fox.

She reached the top and gripped the top of the wall with her wrapped up hands listening to the crunch of broken glass underneath the material, she then hoisted herself up, crouched there for a millisecond taking in her surroundings then dropped down onto the grass on the other side of the wall, landing without a sound. She made her way through the impressive grounds, sticking to the shadows, thankful for the amount of trees there were for cover, until she reached a bush on the edge of an open space of grass 20ft wide with a guard post stationed to the right hand side along another stretch of the perimeter wall. She swore under her breath, the post had not been shown on the blueprints of the building she had consulted earlier that day, she silently cursed Isaac for providing such out of date floor plans. She could feel her mental stopwatch counting down the seconds as she crouched there trying to figure out how to pass the guard sitting in his booth, staring at the television screens that showed the now looping footage of three minutes beforehand to cover her tracks. She shifted her weight slightly as her dominant leg started to lose blood circulation and accidently kicked a small stone a couple of centimetres, she looked around to make sure that she hadn't drawn any attention to herself and that's when she saw them, staring at her from the trees near the guard station, two pairs of yellow eyes just like her own peeking out from the darkness. She smiled slightly to herself as a plan came to her and wasting no time, threw the stone towards the two hidden animals with perfect aim, saw them bound away, rustling the leaves around them vigorously as they fled, drawing the attention of the guard who grabbed his torch and hurried after the retreating foxes. In a flash she had hurtled over the grass and towards the back door, whilst pulling out a small black pouch. Once she had reached the door, she chose a few thin silver instruments from the pouch and crouched down and started picking the lock; she got the door open in her own personal record of 26 seconds.

The back door led her straight into a dark, gloomy corridor which had nothing but a thin rickety staircase and another door at the far end which held far more security precautions than the back door, lucky for her she didn't need to go through there. She tiptoed as fast as she could up the old servant's staircase of the grand manor house, fully aware that she had five and half minutes left before the silent alarm went off, and six minutes before the ear-splitting sirens that would wake the whole house _and _the owner's small private army. Once she was up the stairs, she opened another door praying that it wouldn't creak, then darted across landing, past a slightly open door where she heard some voices arguing about how lucky they would be with the exchange rate in turkey tomorrow. She passed by unnoticed and once again picked another lock of a grand oak door in 31 seconds; she slipped inside and took in her surroundings. She was in the office of the house, it had an imposing wood desk with a lit lamp and a vast bookshelf filled with books that had probably never been touched, the chairs were upholstered with royal green leather and the carpet was plush but had a few worn spots where someone had clearly been pacing a lot.

She got straight to work and climbed onto the desk, trying as hard as she could to avoid the mountains of paper on the surface, reached up to the fire alarm and put a tiny wireless microphone inside it, ready to transmit every conversation Richard Baker would have in this office. She then climbed down and started taking pictures of everything she could see with a tiny digital camera, she took one of the bookshelf, the view from the window which overlooked his luxurious front driveway, the contents of his bin and finally everything in his desk drawers and the piles of paper on the top. She was just about to leave with two minutes to get out when she noticed a file on a small table by the door, it was marked with the CIA seal and stamped "top secret". Without thinking she snatched it up and riffled through it, words jumping out at her like "Circle Of Cavan", "Blackthorne", "Gallagher Academy", and two name's that kept cropping up-"Operative Morgan" and "Operative Solomon", but before she could read what those words mean, the big heavy door next to her swung open revealing two men cut off their conversation, look utterly bewildered for two seconds and then open their mouths as if to shout for help. But the words never came as the girl dropped the file and swung her leg round in one fluid motion knocking both the men over. On their fall, one of the men hit his head on the banister and tumbled down the stairs, knocking himself unconscious but alerting a hoard of stamping feet on the ground floor that something was wrong. The girl cursed and charged at the other man who was already on his feet ready to fight, she rammed him in the shoulder so he also went flying over the banister and dropped 15ft onto the floor, a pool of blood began to form instantly around his head on the tiles below. By this point 5 other men were bounding up the stairs, she ran in the other direction heading back towards the servants staircase but halfway there she saw too late a small marble statue come crashing down on her skull from one of the men who had been discussing the exchange rates. She instantly felt blood dribbling down her face and matting her hair and she saw double vision. She sent a wildly aimed fist out in front of her and surprised herself when it hit a target, the man doubled over and started coughing but before she could continue running she felt in a punch to her side and she instantly felt a rib crack. The force of the punch propelled her further towards the small door at the end of the landing and thankfully her legs responded to her brains commands and started running, she yanked open the door but just as she was about to take the first step her legs gave out and she went tumbling down the stairs and crashed through the door, glass shattering everywhere, making deep gashes and rips all over her skin. By this time her two and a half minutes were up and the alarms were deafening her, she put her hands to her ears to dull the noise and sprinted back through the garden, hearing bullets being fired and seeing the trees splinter around her where they missed. She didn't have time to get out a rope to cross back over the wall; she could already see at least 30 men running after her, their sights trained on the back of her head. So instead, dodging another bullet as it whistled past her ear, she leapt up a tree, ignoring her body which was screaming in protest and climbed it as fast as she could, forgetting all about graceful. Without even looking down at the 25 ft drop she closed her eyes and jumped, knowing the landing was going to be anything but injury free. But instead of landing and potentially breaking both her legs on concrete, she landed in someone's arms, she snapped her eyes open to find herself looking into the blurred image of the green eyes of her backup, she realised with a jolt she didn't even know his code name let alone his real name.

"I thought I told you to leave when the silent alarm goes off?" she slurred as her eyes rolled around in their sockets struggling to lock on to anything.

"I thought I'd have some fun of my own," he smirked as he gestured towards the small pile of unconscious bodies behind him.

"I said stall them, not knock them out," she replied feeling the darkness close in around her vision.

"Yeah well my way was more enjoyable... We need to get out of here, there's more coming and you're not gonna last long."

The shock of him throwing her other his shoulder jolted her back to reality as he sprinted back down the alley, barrelling through two men as they pulled their guns from their holsters.

"Well no shit Sherlock I could've told you that," she replied sarcastically from her upside down view point, "We need to get a car, drive us to 35 Dalton Way, in East London." He bounded for an old, dusty looking Ford and smashed the window open with his elbow to open the door, time had run out to pick locks and think about safety as an unmarked white van screeched round the corner no doubt full to the brim with more armed guards. He dropped her onto the passenger seat then raced round the car and got in the driver's seat.

"How are we supposed to start it?" he practically shouted, panic starting to fill his voice as he watched the van shriek to a halt and the side door slide open 20 metres away.

"Oh for god's sake," the girl muttered as she mustered up her last bit of energy to lean over, rip open the panel underneath the steering wheel and spark the red and green wires together. She felt his body tense as she ran out of energy in her muscles to hold her body up and let her head rest in his lap, whether that was because there was in fact a girls head in his lap or men had started spilling out of the van and were racing towards the car she didn't know, she hoped it was latter because let's face it, the former was a much more scary thought. She finally felt the purr of the engine as it started and he didn't waste any time in slamming his foot down on the accelerator, she pulled herself back into a slumped position on her seat as the car speeded away and her eyes slowly began to close.

"No, _no, NO! _You are not allowed to go to sleep!" he shouted as she felt her muscles truly relaxing.

"Why not?" she mumbled, unable to resist undermining the blatant order she had been given as a soft smile played on her lips.

"Because if you go to sleep there is a very small chance you won't wake up, _I cannot let you get amnesia!_" this last statement bought her back to the present a little bit and she turned to see his jaw clench and his knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel.

"What are you talking about?" she murmured, she realised that amnesia comment hadn't even been meant for her, and then she begun to understand that maybe this boys past isn't any brighter than hers.

"It doesn't matter, talk to me, I've got to keep you talking, what's your name?" he asked as he reached behind him into the back seat of the car and pulled out a map of London and started flicking through the index, his eyes darting from the road to the map every two seconds.

"i can give you directions you know-"

"_What is your name?!"_

"Now that would be telling."

"Look, I'm trying to help you, I could've left you to be killed back there, I don't even know you and I saved your life so tell me your fucking name!" There was a short silence after his little outburst as he panted and continued checking the map but she was nowhere near unconscious anymore, every cell in her body was screaming at her for being so stupid, how could she let herself owe someone a debt? She had broken her one rule; _never_ have to rely on someone else.

"It's Raye... my name's Raye," she whispered after what seemed like hours of silence.

"I'm Zach, nice to meet you. 35 Dalton Way, is it safe?"

"It's the safest place I know."

"Good. How old are you?"

"17."

"How did you get into the clandestine services?"

"I'm not really _in _them."

"You don't work for the government?"

"Kind of, it's hard to explain."

"Who trained you then?"

"A mix."

"Excuse me?"

"A mix of people."

"Well who?"

"Myself, my grandma and the government."

"... So if the government trained you why do you not work for the government?"

"Because I started out with my grandma teaching me the basics just to take my mind off... _stuff,_ I guess... she's a retired MI5 operative you see, when I was nine I started putting what she taught me to practise, and picked up some of my own skills which, let's face it, nine year olds really shouldn't know, I got in with some wrong people when I was eleven and did some stuff that I'm not proud of, I got on the governments radar but instead of hushing me up, they took me in, I guess someone somewhere believed I would be useful to them. They trained me and by the time I was 14 I was going on full blown missions that any junior operative would dream of, but I was a nuisance for MI6, I liked doing things my own way, they didn't know what to do with me, I was too dangerous to keep and I was too valuable to 'get rid of'. So instead I created a new... _occupation _shall we say, I am basically a MI6 contractor, I don't work for an agency, I am my own boss, they can hire me out for certain ops or for certain periods of time, the jobs they give me I do on my own terms, just as long as I get the job done, this way they get what they need and I'm out of their hair and still doing what I'm good at." She didn't know why she was telling him all this, it was like the irrational side of her brain was just taking over and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Throughout her monologue she could feel herself sinking further and further into the dark corners of her mind, her eyes were slits, just wide enough to see the streetlamps flash by, her hands were shaking, she was taking heavy breaths, she could no longer feel her toes and the blood continued to pour out of every gash in her body onto the fabric seats.

Zach had also noticed that she was drifting into oblivion as he said, "Hold on Raye, not long to go now, so how do you know Isaac?"

"He's my brother," She garbled, "how do _you _know him?"

"He's an asset... but he works for MI6 doesn't he?"

"Yeah he does, they found him through me, I got him to run comms on an op I did in Brazil when I was fifteen and straight after that they hired him."

"Where did _he_ train?"

"He wasn't _trained, _he taught himself. When he was eight he hacked into your precious Langley and planted a virus that made every computer screen which was hooked up to the server show an animation of a dinosaur eating the flag of North Korea. They had to rebuild the whole thing because no one could get rid of it."

"... What did you mean _my _Langley?"

"Well you're American aren't you?"

"How did you guess?" he asked, reverting back to his original accent.

"Your accent was good but when we were getting in the car you went to put me in the left hand side and that's the driver seat..."

And with a sigh she felt her last bit of energy leave her as her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She felt dull sensations that felt like someone shaking her but she couldn't be sure and she didn't really care, she felt so calm, darkness had never been so inviting to her.

Zach shook her and shouted at her to wake up but nothing worked, they were two minutes away and he couldn't coax anymore speed out of the old beat up Ford. He turned one more corner and counted down the house numbers until they reached 35, he screeched into the empty driveway and pulled Raye from the car, carrying her in his arms, she was as light as a feather and for the second time that evening he felt how bony she was and it reminded him of another time, another girl, and another head injury once again. He ran to the door but stopped dead at the sight of an old woman standing in the doorway in a nightie and a hairnet with a shotgun trained at his forehead.

"Who the hell are you boy?"


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2.**

The first thing she noticed was the dust, floating in the air all around her, only visible when it's exposed to light. There was a crack in the curtains which let a thin beam of light from a streetlamp fall across her face illuminated the dust, swirling and dancing right in front of her, it was so beautiful, something so simple yet it made Raye so happy. A tear slid down the side of her face, she tried to wipe it away before realising that she couldn't move her hand, she tried to turn her head to see what was preventing it but a blinding pain filled her head and she instantly saw millions of white spots where the dust should be. Then the white instantly vanished and turned into never ending blackness as she sank below again.

It's raining now. She can't see it, her eyes are stuck together like she has conjunctivitis, but she can hear it, tapping against the glass window, trying to break in, trying to drown her.

The glass is cracking now, under the pressure of all the water outside. It pierced a small hole and a small amount of water started spraying inside, and then another and another until finally the whole window gave way and now the water's all around her, rising higher and higher, threatening to engulf her but she can't move, she must be twisted in the bed covers or something so instead all she can do is scream and scream. The water still rises and still no one comes to help her, it's so high she can feel it around her ears, on her cheeks. It's in her mouth and she's choking on it, it's filling up her body, it floods her veins and arteries. Her head fills with water the same time the water hits the ceiling and the last thing she feel, as it all goes dark again, is the sensation of bubbles popping on her bare skin.

Raye went from being deep asleep to wide awake in the time it took for her eyes to fly open and show her pitch blackness, except for glow in the dark stars three metres above her on the ceiling. She let out a sigh of relief as her body relaxed in the instantly recognisable environment. In the few seconds it took for her eyes to get used to the lack of light, she had turned her head to take in the familiar surroundings of her old bedroom, to her left was a clothes rail with all her old clothes in the same place as they were on the day she had left and along the whole length of the wall was sagging bookshelf after sagging bookshelf with hundreds of books jammed into every crack. She wondered if her walls had been repainted or if they were still the same calming forest green they used to be as she turned her head to the left, the first thing she saw was an old woman sitting in a throne-like armchair, at which she smiled slightly to herself; she had missed her grandmother more than she had realised. Behind her grandmother was a massive bay window that had the curtains drawn, with a padded seat running along the length of it.

After a good minute of just breathing in the smell of her childhood she realised just how hungry she was, so she kicked off her covers and after noticing she had nothing on but tiny shorts and one of Isaacs massive gaming t-shirts, she walked across the bedroom being as silent as she could, she opened the door, letting a rectangle of light fall into the room and turned to look back at Josie, who was fast asleep in her armchair, which usually lived downstairs in the living room. Raye frowned to herself as she wondered how the chair had gotten upstairs, as past experience had taught her; Jocie's chair was not as light as it looked.

Her appetite distracted her once again and so she shrugged it off and shut the door behind her, she padded down the stairs, the carpet tickling her bare feet; it was only on the last step that she noticed something was wrong, her nose pricked up as she smelt something foreign, something that didn't belong in this house. All the hairs on her body instantly stood up and every sense went on high alert as she attentively made her way to the living room; where the smell was strongest. She grabbed the rifle Jocie kept in the umbrella stand by the door and with a deep breath to focus her; she burst through the door, rifle ready to be aimed at anything that moved.

Zach had been sitting on the sofa watching an Italian film with no subtitles and the sound off, to practise his lip reading as he could feel himself getting rusty, when he thought he heard a noise out in the hallway, he paused for a second to strain his ears but heard no other sound, so he picked up another slice of pizza. Even though Jocie hadn't said the usual hospitalities like "make yourself at home", he had gotten hungry and found a pizza in the back of her freezer, along with some eyeballs in a jar, and had indeed made himself at home. He hadn't even seen her in the last three days after he had taken Raye up to the bedroom along with Jocie's armchair, and explained what happened, the only words he had heard in reply was to get rid of the car then stay in the house till she said so. Which he had done, much to his annoyance, Zachary Goode did not like to be shut indoors.

All of a sudden the door had burst open, he leapt up and his eyes widened at the sight of Raye standing in the doorway wearing nothing but extremely small shorts, a t-shirt that was most likely Isaac's, an expression that could match hellfire and a rifle aimed at his chest with every intention of using it.

"Woah, steady there, I didn't stick around just to be shot at," Zach said calmly but with his heart beating rapidly.

"You? What are you even doing here?" Raye replied, sounding extremely surprised, yet still didn't lower the rifle.

"Your grandma asked me to stick around... look we already know I'm a friendly, there's really no need for the rifle."

"Really? Why would she ask that?"

"I don't know do I? But she doesn't exactly look like the type of person to challenge so I just went with it," Zach was really starting to get tired of the amount of people pointing guns at him lately.

"What is that smell?" Raye replied, wrinkling her nose, which once again reminded Zach of another girl, one who he really shouldn't be thinking of right now.

"You mean the pizza? ..._could you please stop pointing that gun at me?!"_

In response Raye only rolled her eyes and leant the rifle against the wall by the door, strolled past Zach and leapt over the back of the sofa, grabbing a piece of pizza and turning her attention towards the TV.

Zach only stared at her in disbelief as he walked round the couch and sat down next to her, taking in everything from how she sat cross-legged, revealing scars running up and down her pale legs, scars that were on her arms too, all in varying different stages of fading, the cuts she got three days ago standing out the most, to how frizzy her hair was when she had just woken up.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't stare at me, it's very distracting, I'm trying to watch a movie here... Zach wasn't it?" she said breaking the silence, never taking her eyes off the television screen.

Only allowing himself to be slightly offended by the fact she didn't remember his name, he looked away and went to reach for another piece of pizza before realising they were all gone.

"You've eaten all my pizza! In the space of like two minutes! Is that even humanly possible?" he looked back at her as she finished off the last crust. She just shrugged and reached up behind her to stretch, making her t-shirt ride up, revealing a massive scar that looked like a crater on the moon just above her hip and a small mark that was in the shape of the letter 'k' on raised, shiny skin. Raye saw him looking and scowled, and instantly stopped stretching, causing her top to fall back down again to cover it.

"What's the matter prep boy, never seen a gunshot wound before?" she said turning her body to face him straight on, with narrowed eyes.

"Yeah I have actually, quite a few in my time, but that is not like any gunshot wound I've ever seen before, what caused that?"

She tilted her head to the side as she contemplated whether or not to tell him, but then remembering her debt to him; she sighed and started to talk. "It happened last year in China; I was undercover, trying to take down a massive illegal child slavery organisation. And well, my cover was blown, and running sweat shops wasn't the owner's only talent. I was tortured for 3 months by a guy named Keung Kun, in so many... _imaginative_ ways, I've got to hand it to him he has some good ideas. I got this scar by one of his more entertaining methods, he shot me in the side, it was a substantially clean wound, it didn't hit any organs but this is where the real pain came in, he gave me this dirty old needle which he had probably given to all his other victims and a piece of thread and told me to sew myself up. When I had finished he appeared again with a white hot poker and branded me with the 'k', like a signature."

She had said the whole story with a completely straight face like she had been delivering the weather forecast, after she had finished Zach sat in silence for a bit taking that in, _she had been sixteen when this happened. _Respect for this stranger flooded him as he started to get an idea just how strong she was, very few people he knew would be able to go through that, he imagined Liz, tiny Liz, going through that, and winced.

"So there's still a bullet inside of you?" he didn't even realise he had whispered that in astonishment.

"Yep, I got lucky, not many make it through it, many died from infection or blood loss, or Kun aimed wrong and hit an organ and they died in fifteen minutes. But for me, MI6 got me out and cleaned me up, I don't know how they pulled it off but here I am a year later with just the scars and the stories." She smiled slightly to herself, imagining the reason the government got her out was because Jocie threatened to break her out herself, of course Jocie denied it, but the thought still amused Raye.

"So Yankee, what brings you to her majesty's soils anyway?" Raye asked Zach with a sly grin.

Two hours later, Zach and Raye were still sitting on the sofa, talking like they had been best friends for years, when Jocie hurried into the room with raised eyebrows.

"You two are aware that it's seven 'o' clock in the morning aren't you?" Jocie said to the two teenagers lounging on her couch. Raye smirked and rolled her eyes only to let her face drop at her grandmother's grave expression.

"What's happened?" she asked as she leapt up.

"There are people outside the house, they've found you two," she replied, as she hurried out the room, beckoning for them to follow.

"Oh shit, Zach grab your stuff, I'll be two minutes," and with that Raye bolted out the room and took the stairs three at a time before disappearing into her bedroom.

Zach, completely oblivious to what was happening, realised he didn't have any stuff to grab, just stood in the hallway not sure what to do with himself until Jocie stuck her head out from a door underneath the stairs.

"_I thought I told you to follow me boy", _she hissed at him. Without having to be told twice he followed her through the door, down some steps into a small basement which was dimly lit by a single light bulb and filled with junk. She went over to an old rusty metal cupboard and pulled out a chain from under her dressing gown with a key attached, unlocked the doors with it to reveal nothing inside, yet she still reached inside and slid across a small panel, exposing a fingerprint scanner. After she had placed her finger on it, the back of the cupboard slid up revealing an entranceway into a room where bright fluorescent lights were flickering on. The room was big, it had to go under this house, its garden and next door's house, Zach wondered how she'd swung that with the neighbours. There was shelves and tables and racks and cupboards all filled to the brim with weapons and gadgets, there was a whole section with row upon row of the same clothes rails he had noticed in Raye's room that was dedicated to disguises and then there was the most impressive bit, along the whole length of one wall was at least a hundred screens all of different sizes, some hanging on the walls, some on the long desk, with little electronic boxes and keyboards scattered here and there every so often.

As Zach was taking all this in, Jocie had hurried off towards the gadgets section and Raye had bustled past him shrugging on a jacket and now with a pair of jeans and shoes on, heading towards the disguises part. He followed her over there to find that she'd already started talking as if she had expected him to immediately follow her.

"...very cold outside you'll need a jacket, I don't think we'll need wigs or anything we can get past them using the tunnels, you don't have a bag do you? Oh that's good, the less you have on you the easier this will be. JOCIE, WE'LL HEAD INTO THE CENTRE OF LONDON TO TRY AND THROW THEM OFF BUT I CAN'T PROMISE ANYTHING ABOUT THE ONE'S OUTSIDE. Jesus where did that jacket go... aah here it is, here Yankee, put that on," she threw a jacket over to him without looking up and started stuffing different clothes and wigs into a rucksack, when she was satisfied she jogged over to join her grandmother and started putting different gadgets in the bag too.

"Does one of you want to please tell me what's going on?" he asked as he joined them, just as Raye was zipping up the rucksack and flinging it over her shoulders.

"Some of Baker's men, the man who's house I broke into, has found us, so now we move on, where I don't really know at the moment, all I know is I have to make contact with Isaac before heading to MI6 for a debriefing," Raye replied as she walked off again, towards an apparently blank wall, where she did the same thing as Jocie had on the inside of the cupboard. Raye turned around and raised an eyebrow at Zach as the door slid upwards and he hurried over to her, "See you next time grandma!" she called as the door slid back into place behind them, plunging them into darkness.

Raye pulled out a torch from her pocket and turned it on, illuminating a long, straight, concrete corridor heading into oblivion.

"Now what?" Zach asked incredulously.

"Now, now we walk," Raye replied. As she started walking, she put a comms in her ear and passed Zach one.

"Where is it we are walking to?" he persisted, as he followed suite and put the tiny ear bud in his ear.

"I'll figure that out in a minute," she sighed.

There was a burst of static in their ears and then the sound of Jocie's voice was in their ears, "Raye, sweetie, I forgot to say, I patched up your head, you should be fine, good as new really, and I gave you a few stitches here and there but really, you are incredibly lucky, as you are all the time, I don't know how you do it. Be careful out there you two, Baker has men everywhere, he controls nearly the whole of London, keep your head down and don't draw attention to yourselves, you hear me?" Zach raised his eyebrows in amusement at what Jocie was saying, but kept his mouth shut, he already had a pretty good idea that Raye could take him on without even breaking a sweat.

In response Raye just mumbled thanks and said she'd be in contact in a couple of days before the comms once again fell silent.

"You said you needed to make contact with Isaac right?" Zach asked.

"Yeah, I was supposed to do it in Jocie's cellar, but that obviously isn't an option anymore, so now I need to find somewhere with some good tech..."

"I think I know just the place," Zach replied with a grin.

They had made it into the centre of London via the tube, much to Zach's dismay, after he had suggested taking the Aston Martin parked in the huge garage where the tunnel came out, Raye had only rolled her eyes and led him up a spiral staircase which bought them out into the kitchen of a Chinese take away, Raye had nodded a thanks, accompanied with a wink, at the teenage boy behind the counter who said something to her in mandarin which she laughed at.

"Either my mandarin is a little rusty or did that guy just ask for your hand in marriage?" Zach had asked, as they walked down the bleak street with their hoods up. He turned his head to the right slightly to see Raye grinning into the rain.

"Every time he sees me he asks me to either run away with him or marry him, much to his father's dismay," Raye had replied with a chuckle.

Now they were making their way through the quiet back streets of central London, where the rich bachelors and businessmen and the upper-classed lived. They passed identical gleaming white houses; stretching high into the grey sky above, each one had grand steps leading to a large, black, oak front doors, and pillars framing the porch. They walked down street after street of these houses until they reached one that was a little bit more flamboyant than the rest, the front door was painted a deep blue and there were flower boxes crammed with flowers on every window ledge. They walked up the steps and took shelter under the porch, Raye stood slightly behind Zach, as he reached up and pulled the door knocker that was shaped like an eagle back and let it hit the door just once. The door was almost instantly opened by an old man dressed in a sharp butler uniform, his nose constantly lifted a bit to give the allusion that he was looking down at these two bedraggled, wet teenagers on the doorstep.

"Rebecca, I'm guessing this is for you," he called behind his shoulder, never taking his judgmental eyes off the two.

At the top of the stairs appeared a gorgeous, dark skinned girl, with her hair pulled up into a ponytail, wearing workout gear. She had a puzzled expression on her face before it changed into one of surprise. She bound down the stairs and stopped at the door, shooing away the butler and leaning on the door frame.

"Are you not going to invite us in Bex?" Zach said with a smirk.

Before she could reply, another voice came from the top of the stairs with an American accent and a face Raye had seen all over the TV not too long ago.

"Zach? What the hell are you doing here? ...And who in god's name is that?!"


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3.**

"Macey McHenry? Yankee, you have some weird ally's," Raye said with raised eyebrows as she took in both Macey and Bex glaring at her.

Before Zach could reply, a tiny blonde blur let out a shriek and shot past Macey at the top of the stairs, who protested by calling "Liz, wait!", and down the stairs, tripped on the last step and went canon-balling through the door and into Zach's arms as he stopped her from falling down the front steps. The petite blonde girl only looked up at Zach and giggled as she said "whoopsy daisy", which Zach answered with a chuckle before setting her back on her feet.

In the second it took for a sharp wind to blow past them, the smile slid off Zach's face as he looked into each girls face, and narrowed his eyes, Raye noticed his jaw clenched and the sharp intake of breath he took.

Without as much of a warning, he brushed past Liz into the entrance hall, and stopped inches away from Bex, who was still leaning on the door, and looked intensely into her eyes, as if he was searching for words she wasn't saying.

"Where is Cammie?" he asked, putting emphasis on every single syllable. In response Bex didn't say anything, except Raye saw something flash across her eyes, which she didn't have enough time to interpret.

Zach took a long rattling breath and closed his eyes and turned back to Liz who was biting her lip and looking extremely worried and said, "Liz, take Raye to the office, _now_."

Liz let out a squeak and grabbed Raye's hand, much to her astonishment, and led her upstairs, past a still glaring Macey McHenry, as they reached the top of the staircase, Raye heard an almighty crash and didn't have to turn around to know that Zach had thrown a _very _expensive looking vase at a wall.

Fifteen minutes later, Raye was sitting at a computer in the 'office', which looked a lot like Jocie's tech desk in her basement, but times that by a hundred. Liz was sitting in another chair, every so often saying something like, "are you sure you don't need my help with that, the equipment is very advanced...?" Raye would only roll her eyes and think about how well she and Isaac would get on together. They were also both doing their best to ignore the shouting coming from downstairs, as Macey, Bex and Zach argued about someone called Cammie and the fact that they hadn't heard from her in a couple of days. Raye wondered if this was the Cammie that Zach had told her about last night along with loads about an organisation called the Circle of Cavan.

After a few more minutes she had logged into MI6's server, then used some simple skills Isaac had taught her, to hack into a superior's account, then navigated her way through their files and located Isaac's file, then found his most recent computer's IP address, which showed her his location. She then Google mapped the address and found that he was in a coffee shop in a little village in Scotland. She then easily found the establishments phone number, she reached to pick up a phone off the desk and said to Liz without turning around, "I'm guessing this is safe, yeah?" as she concentrated on punching in the phone number.

"It certainly is," said Macey McHenry, right in her ear. Raye nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned around to find Macey standing behind her with her arms folded and a smirk across her face. "What d'you think, Lizzie?"

"She's MI6, has some basic and... _original, _computer skills, that's not her field speciality though," Liz replied from her chair, fidgeting around at her obvious discomfort of not being needed.

"Yeah I wouldn't say original, someone showed them to me. And you had her _spy _on me?!" Raye asked Macey incredulously.

"Well what do you expect, that's our job," Macey replied sarcastically. Raye only rolled her eyes and turned back around to the computer screen and phone; she pressed the green button and waited for it to connect. On the second ring, someone picked up with a heavy Scottish accent.

"Maryton coffee house, Riley speaking, who may I help?" said a man's voice on the other end.

In an equally think Scottish accent, Raye replied, "Good afternoon Riley, I was wondering if you could help me with a certain customer that may be in your cafe at the moment." Ray could feel the two girls' eyes behind her widen in surprise at her accent.

"Certainly dear, does this customer have a name?" Riley chuckled on the other end of the line to his own joke.

"Aah yes, his name is Peter Parker, if you don't mind..."

"Of course not darling! Give me two secs!" the line at the other end went muffled and Raye could just about make out the sound of Riley shouting for a Peter Parker to come to the phone. In this time, Raye looked over her shoulder to see that Bex and Zach had now joined them, bringing a very icy atmosphere with them.

"What are you doing?" Zach hissed at her.

She only replied with "shut up" as she heard the phone being handed to someone, and heard Liz mutter behind her, "Peter Parker is Spiderman's real name...?"

Another Scottish accent which was obviously not as real as Riley's answered, "Thank you Riley... Hello, who am I speaking-," his Scottish accent instantly turned back into his original London accent as he whispered down the phone, "Raye! Where the hell have you been?"

Reverting back to her normal voice too, Raye replied, "Oh Jesus Isaac, well I'm sorry for nearly being killed, next time I'll send you a memo."

"There's no need for the sarcasm you know," Isaac replied with a huff.

"Look okay, I've got to keep this quick as I have a room full of people staring at me right now, just get back to London as soon as possible, alright? We need to talk face to face," she replied with a glance over her shoulder at everyone still looking at her like she was crazy.

"I'll meet you at headquarters in three days," he responded, then without waiting for her reply he hung up the phone.

With a sigh she put the phone back on the rest and swivelled her chair round to face the group of teenagers.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?" Zach asked her with one eyebrow raised and his arms folded.

"I needed to talk to Isaac," she replied as if that was a good enough answer.

"And you couldn't have used a cell phone?" he asked.

"We only use mobiles in emergencies, and besides, this way is more fun," she said with a grin.

He however, did not smile back. Instead he turned to Liz and just said, "_Find her."_

As Liz sat there stuttering and looking terrified, Macey sighed and turned on Zach, "Don't you think she hasn't already tried? We can't do anything that would draw attention ourselves because The Ci-," she stopped herself and shot a glance at Raye before continuing, "_They_ could be anywhere. And besides, the only way we could possibly find Cammie is through MI6's database, and we can't get deep enough into that from outside headquarters, _so don't you dare think we haven't tried everything." _

In response, Zach just lent back against a wall and rested his head back, looking at the ceiling and said, "I can't let this happen again."

There was a minute of silence before Raye was the first one to notice Liz almost jumping out of her seat, fidgeting and twitching.

"You okay there Blondie?" Raye asked her.

"Well... umm it's just well, there is... I..." she stuttered.

"Oh bloody hell, spit it out Liz," said Bex, sounding exhausted.

"Well it's just... _isn't Raye going to be at MI6 headquarters in three days?!" _

"... And with a computer genius!" Zach added, jumping away from the wall, now staring at Raye wide eyed with hope.

"No way is Liz going to MI6," said Macey as she folded her arms again in defiance.

"Liz isn't the only teenage computer genius in the world you know," Zach replied, not taking his eyes off Raye.

"Oh... well then who?" Macey said, ignoring Liz's shocked and distraught face at the thought of another computer genius who was the same age as her, "you mean that Spiderman she just called?"

"That was her brother Isaac, he's an ally of mine, we can trust him," Zach responded.

"Yeah but who says we can trust _her_?" said Bex, still shooting daggers at Raye.

Before Zach could reply, Raye stood up and crossed the room in three strides coming face to face with Bex and looking down the couple of inches at her with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before talking, "Look, I don't know you, you don't know me, to be honest I don't really care how you fit into this equation but I owe Zach a favour, so if he needs something, he shall get it."

Without realising, Zach had moved over so he was standing next to them, contemplating whether he should pull them apart.

"I only saved your life Raye, no big deal... you don't owe me anything," he said cockily. After staring at Bex for a while longer, she turned to Zach with a smirk

"I don't care if you're about to ask me to find the bones of Julius Caesar, you'll get them. I'll do whatever you need. Now what is it?"

Macey scoffed behind her and said, "How is she supposed to do this, if we can't tell her what she's looking for, in case _they_ find out, she does work for MI6 you know!"

A grin spread across Raye's face as she turned round to face Macey, Bex and Liz very slowly before saying, "You mean the Circle Of Cavan?" she even let out a small laugh at the sight of the three girls expressions of complete and utter shock.

"Well you're wrong on both counts there Macey, we don't need to tell her about The Circle because I already did, and technically, she doesn't even work for MI6," said Zach, without having to turn around, Raye could tell that he was smirking at the sight of the surprised faces of the three teenagers as well.

Bex was the first one out of them to break the silence as she turned to Raye with a fake smile on her face and said, "Raye, do you mind stepping out the room for a second? We need to beat the crap out of our good friend Zach here."


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4. **

Raye just smirked and turned on her heel and left the room, closing the door behind her. As soon as it clicked shut she heard Macey say something that you would never expect an ex-presidential candidates daughter to even _know, _let alone use. Instead of waiting outside the door, she crossed the carpeted landing and went back downstairs, following her nose which was picking up aromas of spaghetti bolognaise. She passed the point where Zach had thrown the vase and saw it had already been cleared up, by one of the countless servants in the house no doubt, she crossed the vast entrance hall, that had ornate furnishings everywhere, she glanced up and saw a crystal chandelier, here and there were extravagant vases of flowers, and bowls of poparee which made her nose itch. Her trainers squeaked slightly on the black and white tiled flooring as she continued down a corridor, where the smell was strongest and walked through an open door to find the kitchen of the house, which was all oak wood panelling and brass taps and handles, and there by the cooker was a chef stirring a pot of bolognaise, just as she had predicted. She leaned against a surface and cleared her throat to get his attention; he merely turned around and regarded her with disinterest.

"I'm guessing you're a friend of Rebecca's?" he asked Raye as he turned back to the saucepan, in a dull, dreary voice.

"Err yeah... let's say I am," she replied, "Would I by any chance be able to get myself a plateful of that?"

"Yeah why not, it's ready anyway," he sighed as he pulled a plate from a cupboard and loaded it with pasta and sauce. She dug in straight away, her stomach thanking her for that taste; the chef eyed her with a look of disgust as she stuffed the spaghetti into her mouth. She was on her third mouthful when she heard a familiar voice speak behind her.

"Rachel Renard? Is that you? ...? I thought you were on a mission at the moment?" said a deep, British voice.

She struggled to swallow her overfull mouth and as she turned around she said, "Its Raye actu- Mr Baxter? What are you doing here?" He folded his arms and leant against the doorframe with an amused expression on his face.

"Well I could ask you the same thing, seeing as _my_ alibi is pretty tight... this is my house Raye," he replied still with a slight smile on his face.

"Oh well then err... you've got an excellent chef might I just say, but ummm..." what was she supposed to tell him? I'm friends with your daughter? They'd only met half an hour ago and you couldn't exactly say there was love at first sight. I was dragged here by a crazy American boy who saved my life? Now that would take much longer to explain. I'm helping out your daughter and her friends with their little predicament to do with the Circle of Cavan? She wasn't even supposed to know about that, let alone lend them a hand. I was chased here by the leader of a massive illegal organisation which is pretty much running London? That is confidential.

Before she could answer Bex appeared next to her father scowling, "Dad, she's with us," she muttered, gesturing for Raye to follow her as she turned around and walked back the way she had come. Raye gave an approving nod at the chef and grabbed her still full plate and followed Bex out.

"It's always nice to see you making friends Rebecca!" he called after the girls with a chuckle.

"_Do not drop any of that on my computers do you hear me?" _Bex hissed at her from across the room.

"Sure sure..." she muttered as she shovelled some more spaghetti in her mouth as she went to sit back in her seat in the office.

"So-," Zach began, only to be interrupted by Raye making her way steadily through her pasta.

"Liz I need you to do something for me," ignoring the scowl Zach shot at her, she went into her bag and pulled out a USB drive and handed it to Liz who was practically jumping up and down from excitement.

"Really? Is it secret MI6 stuff? What do you need me to do because I will be able to do it," she sped over to another computer and plugged the stick into the port.

"I planted some bugs in the house of Richard Baker and I need you to see if they're still active for me, all the warless transmissions should run through a programme on the drive," she said as she leant over Liz's shoulder watching her fingers speed across the keyboard.

"Oh my gosh... Really? But isn't this stuff like... confidential or something?"

Before Raye could reply, Macey cut across her and spat, "I thought you were supposed to be helping us with Cammie?"

"Well I can't do that for three days so maybe you guys can help me with something... Oh my god he didn't get them all," she replied, staring wide eyed at the screen which now showed live video footage of Bakers office, he was in there with two men and seemed to be in a heated discussion with them. Raye grabbed a pair of headphones plugged into the computer and listened in.

"... What do you mean the shipment was a bust? How much did we get out of what we could salvage?" Baker said.

"£50,000 sir," muttered one of the men, who had his head bowed.

"ONLY £50,000? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I INVESTED IN THIS SHIPMENT AND ALL I GOT WAS THAT?" he screamed, "I don't even want to look at you right now. God, I need a drink."

"Would you like me to send a bottle up?" replied the other man, who was standing a little bit closer towards Baker and was wearing a much more expensive suit.

"No Charlie, I'm going to go to Harrison's, get my car ready for two hours time, I've got some business to attend to first. And _you_, get the hell out of here before I do something irrational which I might regret," he said pointing a slender finger at the other man.

And with that he followed Charlie out the door, shutting it firmly behind him. Raye took off the headphones with a sly grin spread across her face.

"Okay first of all, what was the shipment, second, what or who is Harrison's and third, _why are you smiling like that?" _Zach asked, clearly infuriated by everything that had happened since she came back into the room.

"The shipment was _a lot _of drugs that he was illegally sending into turkey, except he obviously didn't consult the right people as to how the stocks were going to turn," she replied still smiling.

"What are you talking about?" Bex asked, clearly intrigued by it all.

"Let's just say there was a bit of a dip in Turkey's economy yesterday which didn't help out the illegal drugs trade too much... and Harrison's is a bar in Soho, and I am smiling Zach, because we're hitting the town tonight, Soho to be exact," Raye said, her smile stretching across her whole face.

An hour later Raye was in one of Bex's many spare bedrooms getting herself ready. She was sitting at the vanity putting her blonde wig on when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," she called, as she tucked a last strand of her red hair under the wig.

The door opened and Macey poked her head around, "Woah, I wasn't expecting the blonde..." Raye only looked at her through the mirror with her eyebrows raised, "do you mind if I come in?" Macey took Raye's lack of response as a yes and shut the door behind her and perched on the edge of massive double bed. She was wearing a very flattering navy blue pantsuit, which exaggerated her gorgeous curves, her hair was up in a loose top knot, with a few strands framing her face, she had minimal amount of makeup but she still looked glamorous.

"What's up McHenry?" Raye asked as she turned around to face her full on.

"I just wanted to say I know I haven't exactly been the nicest person today, but you turned up out of blue with Zach in the middle of a very tense time in our lives... and well, what I'm trying to say is thanks, for helping us with Cammie, you don't need to but you are, and well, I should really be ashamed of my original thoughts of you," she said.

"Well I'm not doing this for you, I owe Zach, and I wouldn't start thinking to kindly of me just yet. I have a question though, are Zach and Cammie like... _together?_"

"I'll let you know when I find that out," she said with a chuckle, "right, you look like you need the help of a daughter of a cosmetics heiress," she said as she jumped up and practically ran out the room, only to return seconds later with a makeup bag the size of an overnight bag and dumped it on the dressing table with a sly grin on her face, accompanied with the role of Raye's eyes.

Half an hour later, Raye was pulling on her high, black heels and grabbing her clutch.

"Come on Raye time to go!" Macey called from the bottom of the stairs where she was waiting with Zach, Bex and Liz.

She walked to the top of the stairs and looked down to see Macey standing at the bottom, looking expectantly up at her, whilst Bex and Zach were deep in conversation and Liz was sitting on the most pointlessly placed chair Raye had ever seen by the front door with a book.

At the sight of her Macey let out a sigh like a proud mother and had a smug smile on her face, she clapped her hands together as a sign as satisfaction, which caught Zach and Bex's attention. Bex raised her eyebrows at the sight of her walking down the stairs and just looked surprised, but then went back to trying to talk to Zach, but Zach wasn't listening anymore, he was staring at her wide eyed and with his mouth hanging open. Raye was wearing what Macey called a "classic LBD" which she explained to mean a black dress which makes you look really hot and attractive to men, which was the whole point of this op, but Raye couldn't help but feel self conscious. Her long legs were bare, and she was wearing a ridiculously padded bra, to help with the disguise Macey had said. Her blonde hair fell loose down to her stomach, she was wearing large hoop earrings and her eyelids felt heavy with makeup, and her lips had been painted an extremely deep red; she didn't even recognise herself when she looked in the mirror.

"Woah Raye, you clean up good," Zach managed to splutter out once Bex had violently kicked his shin.

"You don't look too bad either Yankee," she said as she smirked as he rubbed his shin and finally averted his eyes from her legs. He was wearing a white shirt that was unbuttoned at the top that revealed a bit of collarbone, and smart grey trousers.

"I tried getting a tie and jacket on him but he refused," Macey replied for him as she brushed an imaginary speck of dirt off his shoulder.

"Ugh, men," Bex scoffed, who was wearing a dark green backless cocktail dress which showed off her toned muscles; she looked gorgeous.

"Err yeah, you look nice too Bex," Zach replied, now staring at the floor. Bex only rolled her eyes and smirked at Zach, who was now blushing.

"Are you going or not?" Liz said from the corner, still not taking her eyes off her book, which at closer inspection, Raye realised was actually a book about taxidermy written in Latin.

"Oh Liz, hasn't anyone ever told you? Latin's a dead language," Raye said sarcastically. Liz only sighed and finally put the book down and walked over to them.

"Here, comms, there's tracking devices in everything you're wearing and Raye there's one in your stomach too-"

"Sorry, what?!" Raye exclaimed in shock, only to be ignored.

"-we all know the plan, I'll be back here acting as your eyes, Zach don't do anything reckless, Bex please concentrate on Raye and not on who's butt you could kick, Macey keep an eye on Zach seeing as apparently you're the only one able to keep him in line and please don't attract attention to us and Raye... I don't know about you Raye, don't get kidnapped, we need you in three days alive and well," Liz said. Raye turned round to look around at the three other astonished faces staring at Liz.

"Jesus Christ, who put her in charge?" Raye asked.

"I'm not the only one who just heard that, am I? I'm not going crazy?" Bex asked, who looked half terrified, half impressed and not able to take her eyes off Liz.

"As much as I love you Liz, you scare the hell out of me sometimes," Macey told her with the exact same expression on her face.

"Why do I feel like Macey and Liz have swapped bodies..?" Zach muttered under his breath sounding very creeped out.

"So I'm guessing that's not common?" Raye asked, still looking bewildered.

"You could say that," Zach replied as he took hold of Raye's arm and led her out the front door and helped her down the steps and into a waiting blacked out car, which reminded him of the last time he took a girls arm and helped her down stairs, and his stomach did a little flip.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5.**

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Zach said as Raye and Macey climbed out the car 4 streets away from Harrisons.

"Of course, why wouldn't I?" Raye responded sceptically, resting her arm on the top of the car as she leaned her head down to see Bex and Zach in the back seat, both looking at her with he same look of confusion and disbelief.

"Because this could go very, _very_ wrong..?" Bex interjected.

"I thought you were supposed to be a fearless Baxter?" Raye replied with a sly smile as she closed the car door and turned back to Macey.

"You're sure you're going to be okay though aren't you Raye?" Macey asked her with a slightly worried look on her face.

"Oh Jesus not you too, I'll be fine, now let's go, come on, look there's a cab, I'll see you there," Raye said sticking her arm out for the taxi, then turning and walking away, leaving Macey to get in the black cab that pulled up.

Macey entered the bar alone and headed straight to a comfy, reclusive table in the corner of the modern, trendy bar, adopting he persona of a businesswoman coming to have a quiet drink after work. A waitress came over and took her order and then left her to observe her surroundings. She saw Zach and Bex sitting at the massive round bar that dominated the centre of the bar, acting very boisterous and ordering Harrison's most expensive bottle of champagne, which was _very _expensive. Opposite them on the other side of the bar was Richard Baker with a glass of scotch, and apparently deep in thought. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two cocky men leering at her, she sighed and pulled out some important looking files out from her briefcase and pretended to pour over them as her drink arrived.

A couple of minutes later she was aware of a shift in atmosphere in the bar and she looked up to see the two men no longer looking at her but at the door of the bar, along with many other groups of people, Macey was impressed with Raye's lightness on her toes and her balance as Raye weaved through the tables and sofas dotted around, ignoring the men who were looking hungrily at her and the women who narrowed their eyes in jealousy. Macey only smiled slightly to herself and took all the attention as compliments to her handiwork.

Raye made her way straight up to the bar, right next to Baker who too had noticed her arrival, he looked her up and down, his eyes lingering too long on her chest, and Macey heard him say through her comms, "Hello beautiful, can I buy you a drink?"

Raye let out a high pitched giggle that Macey didn't even think she was possible of making and replied, "Sure, why not?"

"So what's your name?" Richard asked, after he had ordered her one of the fancy cocktails on the menu.

"It's Selena, Selena Kyle," Raye replied looking bashful, she heard Liz in her ear saying something about that being the name of Catwoman but Macey wasn't listening to Liz, she was listening to Richard Baker and her surroundings.

"So Miss Kyle, what do you do for a living?" he asked as her drink arrived, he watched her intently as she took a sip and smiled slightly.

"I'm a private detective actually," she said as she pushed the drink a couple of centremetre's away from her.

"That sounds interesting; you're not investigating me are you?" Baker asked, chuckling at his joke.

Raye let out another small giggle before saying, "Oh gosh no, say I was investigating you, how silly would that be, telling you I was a private detective...?"

"I see where you're coming from, so what are you working on then at the moment?"

"I'm working a missing person's case, nothing major, bit of a lost cause if you ask me, but the client is insisting and paying handsomely, so who am I to deny them," Macey felt Zach tense from all the way across the room, "Anyway, enough from me, what do you do?"

"Me? I'm the CEO of a big business, which deals in many different outlets," he replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh yes? What sort of outlets?"

"Shipping is a big one, along with other smaller things which aren't that interesting."

"What is it that you ship?"

"Now, now, Miss Kyle that would be telling wouldn't it? Let's get off the topic of me, tell me more about this missing person's case, it sounds thrilling."

"Well... I shouldn't really... I suppose no harm can come of it. Basically, this guys girlfriend has gone missing and most of us at the office just think she's left him, but he refuses to believe it, and apparently she's a pretty big deal in the upper-class society if you get what I mean, so I've got to track her down, even though she's basically disappeared, it's just plain tedious if you ask me."

"I am well acquainted with the elite, what is the name of this girl that has gone missing?"

Raye hesitated just a second to long before saying casually, "Her name Cameron Morgan, do you know her?"

In that second all hell broke loose, Macey gasped and then tried to disguise it with a cough, but it was too late, the two men who had been leering at her earlier was paying _far _too much attention to her and she heard one of them whisper, "Hey... isn't that Macey McHenry...?"

At the same time Zach jumped up from his seat, ready to launch himself across the bar at Raye, if it wasn't for Bex holding him back he probably would have, with Bex fuming, she still managed to grab hold of Zach and march him out of the bar as fast as possible. Macey grabbed her briefcase and stuffed everything inside the bag and dashed for the door too, just as the two men were starting to get out of their seats.

"Was that for my benefit or theirs, Miss Renard?" Baker asked Raye with narrowed eyes.

"A bit of both, I needed them out, and I needed to know if you recognised me. now it's your turn, get your men out of here." Baker gave a small flick of his wrist and instantly two men in the corner, a woman sitting three seats away from Raye and a waiter standing by the door all turned and walked out the bar.

"So, is there any particular reason for this impromptu meeting Miss Renard?"

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear about your Turkey shipment, I would've come earlier but see I was passed out with a head trauma, but better late than never eh?"

"Aaahh, glad to see that's gotten through the grapevine, surely you haven't got this dressed up for _me?_ I'm flattered Rachel, if only I'd known, I would've made more of an effort," Mr Baker put his hand on her arm and Raye fought the urge to shiver

"Enough of the sweet talk, time to talk. What is the Circle of Cavan planning next?" for a split second Richard Baker looked momentarily shocked and terrified before composing himself.

"That's a little above your pay grade isn't it sweetie...? But if you must know, Cameron Morgan was the next agenda... _again_, I told them to get the job done when we had her the first time, but that's beside the point. Seeing as she's disappeared off the face of the earth, she is no longer on the top of the list."

"Well what is?" she asked with narrowed he finished off his drink and apprehended Raye with a cocked head in silence for a moment. He then got up and was about to leave, before he put his arms on her shoulders and looked deep into her fake brown eyes.

"My dear, _you _are."


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6.**

Raye stood up and without a backwards glance, walked calmly out of the bar. She waited until she had walked down the street, where there was no glare from a street lamp when she stopped, and took in a long rattling breath, breathing in the crisp, night air like she had never tasted oxygen before.

A second too late her ears pricked up and heard a rustle behind her, just as a hand came down on her mouth and dragged her backwards into a darkened ally. She kicked out at the attacker's foot but they seemed to be expecting it as they moved it away just in time. She was thrown against a brick wall, and she quickly turned around to face her attacker, she wasn't surprised to see Bex drawing her arm back to punch her in the nose. Just in time she ducked and heard Bex's knuckles make contact with the concrete with a crack. She screamed in pain and kneed Raye in the stomach, making her double over and drop to the floor as she cradled her fist.

She was drawing her foot back to kick her when she was interrupted by Macey who appeared at the end of the alleyway with Zach. "Bex, _stop right now! _You're hurting her!"

"That's the whole point Macey! I want her to feel what I am feeling right now, right in the pit of my stomach, the pain of having lost your best friend, _again_, and then having some stranger throw it back in your face!" she bought back her foot again and was bringing it down on Raye's helpless body when at the last moment Zach stepped in front of her, taking the blow in his shin, which made him groan and squeeze his eyes shut, but still he stood his ground.

As Bex looked at him with a mixture of shock and anger written across her face, Raye managed to pull herself to her knees and look up at her and say with a wheezing voice, "With all due respect Bex, you have no idea what you're talking about. I just did you a favour, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't paralyse me just yet."

"How was that in any way a favour to me?"

"ignoring the fact that she just got handed a death sentence so you don't have to kill her, we're now a step closer to finding Cammie," said Macey, who was still standing at the entrance of the alleyway, "Now come on, I don't like our position here, let's go home."

_3 days later._

The silence that usually encompassed the time just before dawn was broken by a muffled vibrating sound coming from a pile of clothes in the corner of the room. Raye's eyes shot open and she darted across the room from where she had just been sound asleep in the grand bed. She pulled out her phone from her bag and saw Isaac had just texted her:

_The eagle has nested. I x_

As she read the message, her whole body went stiff as she realised there was someone else in the room, she slowly turned on the spot, to find Zach perching on a chest of drawers across the room, smirking at her.

"Were you even asleep just then, or pretending to be?"

"I was asleep. You know, some girls might think its creepy having a boy watch them sleep.'

"So I've been told, personally I don't see the big deal," Zach said whilst chuckling to himself, Raye noticed his eyes glaze over ever so slightly for a few seconds.

"What can I do for you Zach?" Raye asked with a sigh.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing; you've just spent three days holed up in this mad house, enough to drive anyone crazy." Raye noticed again that he flinched at the word 'crazy'.

"Don't lie to me Zach, third days up, you wanted to know when I'm going to HQ today didn't you?"

"Man I'm getting rusty... but yeah, spot on."

There was a silence as she contemplated Zach, his apparent cool demeanour couldn't hide the fact that his nails were bitten right back, that he was very slightly tapping his foot, and he had started to develop dark circles under his eyes.

"Be ready to leave in 10 minutes."

"Keep your head down and don't be a smartass okay?" Raye said an hour later as they walked into a tall, glass skyscraper, across a vast, modern reception and up to a front desk with a receptionist who looked like she had just poured a whole make-up counter on her face.

"Hello dear, how can I help you?"

"I do believe I'm Mr Khan's 3 'o' clock?" she replied, fluttering her eyelashes slightly. A puzzled look crossed his face Zach's face as he realised it wasn't even 7am yet.

"He's got company at the moment, but you're more than welcome to wait?"

"Certainly, thank you for the assistance." And with that Raye walked off towards a row of elevators on the far wall.

"But-," Zach started, only to be cut off immediately by Raye shushing him. She called a lift and swiftly walked into it with Zach following, the doors quickly closed behind them. Instead of pressing one of the hundred buttons on the wall, she stood still facing the doors with her eyes closed; Zach looked at her puzzled and followed suit. Seconds later he heard a soft beep and had the feeling of being engulfed in water for 2 seconds and then it was gone. "Full body scan?" he asked. In response Raye just shushed him again.

"Please state name and reason for using guest entrance," said an electronic voice over head.

"Raye Renard, I have a guest," Raye replied.

"We have no record of a Raye Renard, please state name and reason for using guest entrance," the voice replied again.

"Oh for god's sake," Raye said under her breath, "_Rachel_ Renard, I am bringing a guest."

She kicked Zach in indication that it was his turn, "Oh umm... Zachary Goode... The guest?"

In response the lift plummeted 100 feet, taking them through another full body scanner, and stopped with a ding. The panel with all the buttons flipped round revealing a hand scanner, Raye went first and flinched slightly when she put her hand on, Zach then did the same thing as he put his hand on the pad and felt a small prick on his finger where a needle had taken some blood.

Two ID badges then dropped into a small slot below the pad as the doors opened, Zach watched Raye completely ignore them and walk out the lift with her head held high, Zach shrugged and left his badge where it was and followed her out into a massive underground bunker. Everything he could see was white; he squinted slightly as he stepped onto the shiny marble flooring and saw hundreds of people walking to and fro, all looking like they were on very important business, some glancing at Raye and rolling their eyes, or shooting daggers in their direction, and all wearing ID badges he noticed.

"Hey Raye, are you sure we weren't supposed to wear those badge?" he asked as he jogged to catch up with her before she disappeared into the throng of people, "It looks like we need them to get around..." he said as he watched people flashing them at scanners before doors opened for them.

"Don't worry; we'll have our own escort in 3... 2... 1... Aaahh right on time! Good morning Jeremy, you're here bright and early! You look splendid, had a hair cut?" she asked the biggest man he'd ever seen in his life, he was just as wide as he was tall, with a shiny bald head and a permanent grimace on his face.

"Miss Renard, Mr Goode, follow me please."

"Why is everyone staring at you like that Raye?" Zach asked her as they followed Jeremy down endless white corridors and through numerous handle-less doors

"Because a lot of people don't... _agree_ with my being here," she said as they stopped outside a door that looked exactly like the others, and Jeremy snorted in response to what Raye said as they walked through the door into a gleaming white office with a middle aged woman sitting behind a desk, "I piss a lot of people off... including you Mrs Forbes, by the looks of it," she said to the woman behind the desk, who was resting her chin on her hands and looked like she was trying very hard not implode.

"You could say that Rachel." She replied in a strained voice.

"What have I done now?" Raye said with a sigh as she slouched down in an armchair across the desk from Mrs Forbes.

"Would you like to explain to me why you've been radio silent since before the mission at the Baker mansion? I gave you that mission in good faith, a lot of operatives wanted that op but I chose to give it to you, yet you broke that trust when you failed to hand in your report the next second possible. And from what I understand from the Baxter's, you've been kicking your feet up in their house without a care in the world! Now would you like to tell me _exactly _what happened?"

Raye narrowed her eyes at the woman and contemplated whether to cooperate with her, in the end she compromised and said, "The mission was successful, I got in and out, planted the bugs, he had some scramblers we weren't anticipating so a minimal amount work, but better that than nothing." And with that she stood up and stomped across the room, her trainers making hard thuds on the floor, she grabbed Zach's hand, who was still idling by the door, not sure as to what he should do, and dragged him out the room, slamming the door on the way out.

"Why didn't you tell her the truth?" he asked as she continued to drag him down the corridor, they reached the end where there was someone flashing their badge on the scanner to open the door, as the door opened Raye barged past the man, knocking him to the floor and continued to march through the door without a glance back. "What was that for?" Zach asked in astonishment.

With a sigh she said, "I didn't tell her the truth because I don't want MI6 sticking their nose in with the business between Baker and me, and _that_ my dear boy, was for _this,"_ she said as she flashed a grin and the ID badge of the man she had just pushed over at Zach.

With no word of warning she dragged him down another corridor, knocked five times in quick succession on a door, then ducked into another, smaller corridor right next to the door. A couple of seconds later, they heard the door open and then close again, and someone walking their way. Raye grabbed the collar of the person's t-shirt just as they stepped past the opening of the corridor, and pulled them towards them.

"Well thank god it's you Isaac, I am yet to forget the last time we did that and I pulled the Secretary of Defence into a broom cupboard."

"Good to see you too Raye... Zach? Well isn't this a surprise," Isaac replied as he looked Zach up down, "Well haven't you grown into yourself far more than you had two years ago... I mean you were always dreamy but this is taking the biscuit now."

"Hey Isaac, still gay I see?" Zach replied with a chuckle.

"What would the world be without me gay?" Isaac said as he flashed him a dazzling smile.

"Right well lovely reunion and all, but we've got work to do," said Raye, as she pulled them off back again down the corridor.

Ten minutes later they were in the heart of headquarters, in an equally large bunker as the entrance hall, but everything was black this time, and instead of large amounts of space for people to walk around, there was just row upon row of technical equipment, some reaching as high as the ceiling, and the place was deserted.

Raye and Zach were standing behind Isaac who was sitting at a desk, his fingers flying over a keyboard as he hacked into the system.

"Aaahh got it, right, what was the name again?" he asked as a search bar flashed up on the screen.

"Cameron Morgan," Raye replied. He typed it in and pages and pages of search results appeared, "Hey can you print those?" she asked. He nodded and they heard the printer burst to life, he then pressed another few buttons and an image of the globe appeared on the screen. After a few seconds it started to zoom in very slowly.

"Well she's in Europe..." Isaac started as the image continued to zoom in on Cammie's location, "United Kingdom... England... London... Centre of London... Oh my god. Guys, she's _here, _she's at MI6!"


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7.**

"We need to get her _right now," _hissed Zach, who was obviously trying very hard to not explode.

"We can't exactly break someone out of MI6 with no planning, or warning for that matter," said Raye as she collected the documents from the printer and stuffed them down the back of the waistband of her jeans.

"Yes we can, we can do it, we're in the building, and Isaac you can find her precise location cant you? What's stopping us?"

"Well how about the fact that there's hundreds if not thousands of people here right now... why don't we just come back later?" said Isaac.

"Isaac the people who work here don't exactly have a 9 till 5 job," Raye replied, "but okay, it's going to be messy, and there are _a lot _of risks involved..."

"I don't care, I need to- _we _need to get her out right now," said Zach, who was slightly panting.

"But how do we know that she isn't just here voluntarily..?" asked Isaac, "So what she was radio silent for a few days, there are whole months when I don't hear a word from Raye."

"Cammie isn't like that; she wouldn't do this kind of thing voluntarily. And if she was here voluntarily don't you think the Baxter's would have heard about it?"

"Hey, do you think it's something to do with the Circle of Cavan?" asked Isaac. Zach turned shocked to look at Isaac with his mouth hanging open.

"How the hell do you know about the Circle of Cavan...?" Zach asked in a whisper.

"I like reading confidential files okay, I figure if this whole hacking thing blows up in my face I need some blackmail material," replied Isaac looking sheepish, "nice mother you've got there by the way Zach..."

"Yeah isn't she just the best," Zach replied; only Raye was the one who noticed his jaw lock and his fists clench.

"Okay will both of you shut up and listen, I think I know how we're going to do this," said Raye, gaining the two boys' full attention.

"Mrs Forbes, can I have a word?" Raye asked half an hour later, as she stuck her head round her superior's office door, and eyed Jeremy, giving her boss the idea that she wanted to be alone.

"Jeremy, wait outside for a minute," Mrs Forbes asked Jeremy, he groaned and walked out, closing the door behind him. "What can I do for you Rachel?"

At this point Raye panicked, as she realised she had no idea what she was supposed to say to her. At the last minute she panicked and tried to relate to Mrs Forbes' maternal side... if she even had one, she thought.

"I was just wondering, oh gosh it's so silly, but at the moment I've been thinking a lot about my father, and I was just wondering... if you used to know him?" Raye asked, as she tried to make her voice softer, she sat delicately down on a chair and made herself look like she was trying not to cry.

She had obviously hit a nerve with Mrs Forbes and stopped herself from smiling, as she pulled a chair up next to Raye's and put her hand on her shoulder.

"What's bought this on? But my dear, you know better than most people that I'm not allowed to say anything on the topic, surely you should ask someone more qualified to have this discussion?"

Right on cue, Raye let the tears flow down her cheeks and dramatically buried her face in Mrs Forbes' blazer. She started sobbing, as she slipped her hand into Mrs Forbes' inside pocket and slipped her ID badge up her sleeve.

"Gosh, I'm so sorry for piling this all on you, probably the last thing you need," Raye said as she wiped her eyes and stood up, much to Mrs Forbes' surprise, then smiling to her boss, she turned and walked out the office.

If the tech bunker was the heart of headquarters, the interrogation rooms were the dungeons, six floors down, where the lighting and the temperature was substantially lower.

Raye and Zach walked along the deserted corridors, following the instructions Isaac had given them prior to his departure. They finally stopped outside an unmarked door where Raye said, "You sure you're okay with doing this? There will only be one in there but they're probably well trained...?"

"Who said I wasn't well trained?" Zach replied with his teeth gritted. Ever since Raye had found him waiting around the corner of Mrs Forbes' office, he had an expression of grim determination on his face and hadn't said more than five words.

With a nod, Raye swiped Mrs Forbes' ID badge along the scanner, a green light flashed green as they heard the door click open and Zach slipped inside. Right next to the door, was another completely identical to the one Zach had just gone through, except instead of leading into the recording and observing room behind the one-way mirror of the interrogation room, she was about to break into the actual room..

She took a deep breath and flashed the card, heard the door click open, with one more glance around the corridor, she slid into the room.

Cammie had been sitting in the same interrogation room for two days straight now. There were sixty four ceiling tiles. Every three minutes and twenty four seconds, the light in the far right hand corner flickered once. She had had four hours sleep in total. She was hungry. She wanted a shower. But most of all she wanted to be back at the Baxter's with her friends and some hot cocoa watching a chick flick.

She was resting the side of her head on the cool metal table, staring at the mirror on the wall, wondering if anyone was watching her right now, if they were ever going to tell her why she was here, or if anyone knew where she was. She doubted that last one very highly.

She was alerted to the familiar click of the door and lifted her head with a sigh, getting ready for round ninety four of questions when she froze in shock. It was not some tight lipped, bad-tempered man in a crumpled suit like it has been before, but a girl, seemingly impossible to age, there was innocence to her features but her eyes looked wise, like they had seen things she could never even dream of. She was incredibly tall, and had rusty red hair which was hanging loose round her shoulders, instead of scraped back like some of the other women who had interrogated her. She was wearing jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt that was at least four sizes big for her with some band on the front, much unlike the variety of black or navy suits she had seen.

"Cammie Morgan?" the girl asked, staring at her with narrowed eyes. Cammie only nodded, she was thinking too much to answer with words, was this some trick to scam her into talking? "Come with me, we need to leave _now._"

"_What_?!" Cammie asked incredulously.

"Jesus do you want to get out of here or not, don't worry, I'm an ally," Raye replied, checking up and down the corridor outside every so often.

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"Oh for god's sake ill just leave you here then shall I?" Raye said whilst rolling her eyes.

"Fine! Okay I'm coming," Cammie finally answered, with a quick suspicious glance at the mirror she followed the girl outside, where she was knocking on another door.

"Zach, come on! We're running late!" Raye shouted through the door.

"Wait, _what_?! Zach's-," Cammie began to exclaim, but she was cut out off by the sound of an alarm that pierced the air, and turned all the lights red.

"Oh my god, Isaac's set the fire alarm off early, _ZACH GET OUTSIDE NOW OR I'M LEAVING WITHOUT YOU!" _Raye screamed through the door. Finally, the door opened and Zach appeared, with blood trickling down his face from his eyebrow and a bruise starting to appear on his jaw. Before Cammie could even register what was going on right now, the girl had grabbed both Zach and Cammie and was sprinting down the corridor, she kicked open a door at the end without stopping her pace and continued up a spiral staircase, Cammie looked directly above her and saw the stairs spiralling so far up she couldn't see the end.

It took them four minutes and thirty six seconds to reach the top, by which point all three of them were sweating and panting like they had just ran a marathon. Cammie saw that a heavy steel door was already wide open, the girl, who was still dragging them behind her and sprinting as if her life depended on it, continued through the door, up another small flight of stairs until they reached a gate at the top which she again kicked open, she pulled them through and continued running down the side streets of London, taking every turning she could see, jumping over fences, down back alleys and through some peoples gardens at one point.

"Raye, stop!" Zach gasped, "We're far enough away, they won't find us."

All of a sudden Raye screeched to a stop and rounded on Zach, her eyes on fire and grabbed the front of his shirt and scrunched it in her hands, pulling his face inches from hers.

"Listen here Yankee, we are _never _going to be far away enough, they are _always _going to find us," Raye hissed, "Do you even understand what we just did? Or is your cocky brain having a hard time trying to figure out the consequences? Yeah sure you're fine, you can go back to America in one of Rebecca Baxter's fancy private jets, _me? _I'm going to have to stay here and reap the benefits of just having _broken your girlfriend out of MI6 headquarters! _I could lose my job! We've not only put me in jeopardy, but Isaac too. So be grateful that I even decided to help you in the first place, if you haven't noticed I've got my own problems! You're not the only two with death sentences from the Circle pinned to your head! So for once in you godammed life just shut up and listen to me!" Raye screamed at him, dropping him back fully on his feet.

"Since when did you care about your 'job'?" he asked, as he watched her close her eyes a breath deeply.

"Believe it or not, I actually like what I've got going for me here. Now, are you not even going to say hello to your long lost girlfriend?" Raye asked with a smirk and one eyebrow raised after she had calmed down.


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8.**

Cammie turned to Zach, aware of a sudden tension in the air, it wasn't like the last time she saw him after 'disappearing', it wasn't so much as an imaginary wall, more like the wall was surrounding them, making them the only people in the world in that moment. The next thing she knew she was in his arms, with her face buried in his chest, breathing that smell she had come to know and love.  
"Oh Cammie...," he whispered into her hair, "Are you okay? What happened? What did they do to you? ...Who even are _they_?"  
"I'm fine Zach, I swear, for real this time, I'm just tired. And I have no idea," she replied as she tightened her arms around him.  
"My best bet is The Circle," said Raye behind them, who was leaning against a wall, inspecting her nails and paying them no attention, for a second she looked exactly like Macey, "But then Baker had no idea, so I would say it was on command of either someone very high up, or was an individual group who have broken away from The Circle and taking matters into their own hands."  
Whilst she was talking, Zach and Cammie had broken away, part in embarrassment and the other part being to save Raye from any more awkwardness, but Zach took a firm hold of Cammie's hand, which gave Cammie the impression that he was never going to let go of her again.  
"So, what now?" asked Cammie.  
"Now we get you back to safety at the Gallagher Academy where I can keep an eye on you," said Zach forcefully.  
"Don't be stupid Zach I can't hide away at school forever, we need to fight this, and we need to end this."  
"Are you joking? I'm not letting you anywhere near The Circle ever again, let alone voluntarily, you can forget it."  
"Zach, you can't control me; this is going to happen eventually. Now... Raye was it? Can you take us back to the Baxter's; I want to see my sisters."

* * *

"What I don't understand is how did Mrs Forbes' ID card get us into that interrogation room, is she part of The Circle? And won't the cameras have seen us?" Zach asked, as they approached the Baxter's house, after doing countless counter surveillance techniques, which made them 4 hours late back.

"Mrs Forbes is pretty high up in the food chain at MI6; her ID gets her into anywhere she wants to go, no question, so no I don't think she is. And we had Isaac helping us; do you really think he would be that stupid?" Raye replied as they hurried up the Baxter's front steps and knocked on the door.

The butler, who Raye had learnt was called Stanley, opened the door in seconds.

"Lovely to see you back Miss Morgan," he said with a hint of a smile at the sight of the girl.

"How did you do that?" Raye muttered as they walked past him.

"Do what?" Cammie replied, whilst flashing a smile at Stanley over her shoulder.

"Got him to be _nice,_" Raye said with a role of her eyes at Stanley's behaviour.

"We're back!" Zach shouted up the stairs, "You might want to come and see what we bought with us!" he continued, as he looked back at Cammie and smirked his usual smirk which Cammie had missed a ridiculous amount she realised.

Before Cammie even had time to turn her head; out of the corner of her eye she saw a tiny blonde blur propel herself into her.

"Liz! Oh my gosh have I missed _you _or what?" Cammie exclaimed.

In response Liz only squeezed Cammie tighter, making Cammie struggle for breath. Next thing she knew she heard two squeals and felt two other pairs of arms wrap around her, making her feel more safe than she had in a long time.

The broke apart and all turned back to look at Zach and Raye who were standing awkwardly next to each other, Zach with his usual smirk on his face and Raye with her usual eyebrows raised and narrowed eyes observing the group of girls.

"Well now the reunion's over, how about we get to talking about what we're going to do about The Circle?" Raye said whilst looking apprehensively at Zach.

"What?! No way! Cammie are you joking? We've got to get you to safety! Then we can leave the grownups to handle it!" Bex said in shock, throwing a look filled with daggers at Raye.

"'The grownups'?! Seriously? We're seventeen for god's sake! We're not kids! With or without you I am going to finish my mission and bring Baker down, Baker will lead you to the Circle, I'm the best chance you've got of finishing this and that window of opportunity isn't going to last forever! So yeah, you go run back to your precious _academy _and let the _grownups _deal with it, most likely failing, or you can come with me and we can end this!" Raye yelled, sounding offended.

There was a minute of silence and Bex and Raye stared each other out until Macey broke the tension and said, "I think we should go with Raye."

Everyone turned to her shocked, with their mouths hanging open and eyes wide with surprise, except Raye, who merely smiled and pulled out a small electronic device from her pocket and started typing commands into it.

The uproar that followed lasted for two hours, constant argument after argument as they went round in circles, until finally two and a half hours later they were standing outside the Baxter's house, each with a bag packed full of clothes and gadgets.

"I've talked to Jocie, Baker's men haven't left her alone whatsoever, so that's not safe but I need to go back for something, so we're just going to have to risk it," Raye said to Zach, "lets split up, you come with me, Cammie go with Macey, and Bex go with Liz, we'll meet outside my place in two hours."

"WHAT?!" they all shouted at the same time, all for different reasons, they then continued to talk all over the top of each other.

"I'm not leaving Cammie." Zach said.

"You can't split us up!" Macey said.

"I'm not letting Zach go with _you!_" Cammie said.

"You have your own place?!" Bex said.

"What do you mean it's not safe...?" Liz said.

In response Raye just raised her eyebrows once again and said, "Look I didn't want to have to do this but if you're going to act like this... _you need me, _it's my way or no way."

Half an hour later Raye and Zach were on their way back across London, with comms in their ear, as insisted upon from Zach and Raye with a satisfied smile on her face and Zach with a scowl.

"If anything happens to her, I'm going to kill you." Zach muttered as they were pressed along by the crowd of people on the busy streets.

"Don't worry, I know," was all Raye could say in return as they continued on their journey into who knows what kind of danger that awaited them.


	9. Chapter 9

**(I'm sorry it's taken so long to upload recently, I've had exams for the last two months, however from now in hopefully I should be uploading regularly, fingers crossed that is as I am in the process of moving house, thanks for all the support!)**

* * *

**CHAPTER 9.**

By the time Raye and Zach had reached East London again, it was the middle of the afternoon and the streets were much less busy as they moved away from the centre of the city.

"Well thank god for that, if I have to see one more tourist I think I'm going to pull out my hair," Zach said, as they turned onto a small, run down high street with only a few homeless men lingering around and a scattering of one-legged pigeons.

"Those tourists were our cover," Raye muttered in response as she quickened her pace and put her head down.

They continued down the high street until they reached a familiar Chinese take away and they entered the empty shop, passing the old man behind the counter who didn't even look up from his newspaper as they went into the greasy kitchen. She had just opened the trap door on the floor in the corner of kitchen when suddenly Raye froze.

"What are you-," Zach began to ask but then the chime of the bell above the entrance of the Chinese take away went off as someone came into the store.

Raye's eyes widened as she slowly put a finger to her lips, every muscle on her body still as rigid as a rock as she stood there, not even daring to breathe.

Zach's puzzled expression turned to one of realisation as the owner started talking in strongly accented English, "What can I do for you two then?

"We're actually looking for two teenagers who just came in here, where did they go?"

"I'm sorry sir, I'm not quite sure I understand... What teenagers?"

"They're a dark haired boy, very tall, and a red haired girl, also quite tall, both dressed in black. It is imperative that we find them. So to speed up the process, why don't you put us in the direction they went?"

"No one has entered this establishment today of that description, I'm sorry I can't be any help," the owner sighed, sounding bored out of his mind.

"So it's going to be like that is it," the voice of the other man said, there was a rustle of clothing and then the distinct click of a gun's safety being taken off.

In a flash, Raye let go of the half open trap door, grabbed a knife in each hand that were lying on the side and was standing in the open doorway that led from the kitchen to the front of the shop as the trap door fell to the floor with a bang. The two men looked over to the door at the sound and saw instead two knives flying towards the chests. The last thing they ever saw was a teenage girl who's eyes were filled with pure rage and her copper hair flying in the wake of her now empty hands coming back down to rest at her sides.

Zach jolted to a stop next to her as the bodies fell to the floor with a thud.

"What the hell..." he whispered, unable to take his eyes off the growing dark stains on their shirts.

Raye didn't say anything in response, instead, she took a deep breath and went over to the corpses, pulled out the knives from their chests, pushed past Zach into the kitchen, threw them in a sink which was filled with water, went back out and searched their pockets, pulling out two wallets and two phones, she prised the gun out of the hand of one of them and put them all in her backpack. She then grabbed the feet of one of them and started pulling him back into the kitchen; she pulled the trap door back open to reveal the spiral staircase they had travelled up before. She heaved the body down a few steps, then rolled him under the hand rail and let him drop 30 feet to the ground below. She then went back out into the store front where Zach was still standing in the doorway, completely shocked.

"Jesus Zach are you not going to help me?" she shot at him as she stepped over the second body and went over to the front door, where she turned the open sign to the 'closed' side.

Without saying anything Zach edged over to the corpse and picked up his feet, just like Raye had done, and started dragging him into the kitchen, he glanced up at the owner, to make sure he hadn't had a heart attack or something and nearly fell over in shock, the owner didn't even look shaken up whatsoever, instead he had just gone back to leaning on the counter, reading the financial section of his newspaper.

* * *

"Are you going to tell me what that was all about?" Zach asked 15 minutes later. He felt like he was in a dream, he was sitting shotgun in a golf buggy, driving down a long dark tunnel with two dead bodies in the back seat.

"Nope," Raye responded, as she pulled to a stop where the tunnel ended. She got out the buggy and lifted one of the bodies under the shoulders and pulled him through the now open steel door, into her grandmothers basement, "Don't just sit there, grab the other one will you!" she called over to him, as she continued to pull the body across the floor, leaving streaks of blood on the floor.

He followed suit and copied Raye as he dragged the second body over to a large plastic tank filled with clear liquid. Raye pulled the body up a few steps to reach the top then grunted as she heaved him over the edge and into the liquid. There was an instant sizzling sound and smoke started coming off the body, Raye pulled her t-shirt up over her mouth to help with the awful smell that instantly erupted from the tank.

He frowned and then did the same, before asking, "And what is this?"

"Have you never seen Breaking Bad..?"

"What is that?" he asked, his eyebrows rising even further up his forehead as the two bodies floating in the tank behind them started to dissolve.

"This here is a tank of hydrochloric acid, breaks apart anything and everything, not leaving a trace."

As she said that, there was a hiss from the other side of the room as the entrance door slid up, revealing Jocie, standing there, with her arms folded across her chest.

"RACHEL GRACE RENARD! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU DISSOVLING IN MY BASEMENT?" she screamed as she marched towards them.

"Jocie, okay please just listen, we were in the Chinese and these two guys came in and then they pulled a gun on Chan and I couldn't just let them shoot him please you have to believe me okay no one saw I swear!" Zach glanced over at Raye and was supersede when he saw a slight hint of fear in her eyes.

By this point Jocie had reached them and was standing inches from Raye, even though she was shorter than Raye by a considerate amount, it didn't stop her making Raye feel like the smallest person in the world at that point.

"Raye, sometimes you are the cleverest person I've ever known, but then you go and do the stupidest things _and it actually hurts my heart!" _Jocie said, so forcefully, Zach felt the effect from where he was standing, "How long ago did this happen?" she continued to say, as she stepped away from Raye, taking her backpack with her, over to a table and pulled out the wallets, phones and gun. Both the phones were encrypted and the wallets had nothing of importance so she chucked them in the tank with the bodies, which were just a mess of bones, blood and chunks of muscle and organs.

"About 20 minutes ago," Zach replied when Raye said nothing.

"Well then you've got about 10 minutes," she said as she rushed around chucking more things into Raye's bag.

"Before what?" Zach asked.

"Before we are attacked," Raye said as she took off running towards the door that led to the house.

* * *

Seven minutes. That is all it took for them to get in and out of that basement, now with two backpacks filled with more gear, and a gun each tucked in the back waistband of their trousers. They were sprinting down the tunnel, all that could be heard was their heavy breathing and their feet pounding on the stone floor.

They reached the bunker, filled with widest range of vehicles Zach had ever seen, which included a helicopter, sitting in the middle of the room. He jolted to a halt as Raye swerved away from the staircase which led into the Chinese, and instead headed towards a section of the bunker that was dedicated to sports cars.

"What was that you were saying about wanting to take the Aston Martin for a spin?" Raye called as Zach continued over to her, she turned and shot him a wink as she picked a set of keys off of a row of hooks which lined the wall. They hurried over to a black Aston Martin and Raye got in the driver's side and started the engine. Zach groaned slightly at the soft growl the car gave as he slid into the passenger seat. "You might want to put your seatbelt on," Raye said as they shot up a spiralling ramp which led them into a car park. The smile slid off her face as they screeched to a halt in front of two cars sitting side by side in the middle of the car park. They revved their engines and Zach could've sworn every single person in those cars was smirking right at them.

"Oh shit," Zach said.

"Oh shit is right," Raye replied as she put the car into gear and pushed the pedal to the floor as she turned and left the safety of the car park and entered the streets of London at full speed, with the two cars hot on their tail.


End file.
